Letter-box



(No Model.)

.J. SPEAR. LETTER BOX.

No. 479,576. Patented July 26,1892.

WITNESSES Z flown/0 4 Q a. 04

m wins 20., PHOTM|THD,;WASHINCYDN o c UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JAMES SPEAR, OF PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA.

LETTER-BOX.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 479,576, dated July 26, 1892.

Application filed November 19, 1891. Serial No. 412,420. (No model.)

To aZZ whom it may concern: 7

Be it known that 1, JAMES SPEAE, a citizen 0 the United States, residing in the city and county of Philadelphia, State of Pennsyl- Vania, have invented a new and useful improvement in Mail-Boxes, which improvement is fully set forth in the following specification and accompanying drawings.

My invention consists of a mail-box formed of two or more compartments and achute, which is adapted to direct packagessuch as merchandiseto the lower compartment, whereby abstraction of the articles is prevented, owing to the guarded position of said compartment, being substantially as decribed.

Figure 1 represents a perspective view of a mail-box embodying my invention. Fig. 2 represents a vertical section thereof on an enlarged scale.

Similar letters of reference indicate corresponding parts in the two figures.

Referring to the drawings, A designates a mail-box consisting ota casing having the distinct compartments B C D therein, placed one upon the other, the compartments B and 0 having each a throat or inlet E with a door F thereover. The bottom compartment D has an inlet or throat G, which in the present case is at the upper corner of the rear of the box, and has in communication with the same a throat H, which rises from the wall of said compartment D, passes upwardly behind the compartments 0 and B, and has its upper termination above the compartment of said compartment B, where it is provided with a door J and constitutes the point of entrance into the bottom compartment of said compartments.

It will be seen that when the door J is opened packages-such as merchandise, large newspapers or bundles thereof, &c.may be placed into the chute H, and are directed by the same so as to drop into the compartment D, from whence they-may be removed by the postman when the door K-thereof is opened.

Letters and papers may be dropped into either of the compartments B or C, and the same are removable when the door L is opened, said door being common to both compartments.

Owing to the positions of the compartment D and chute H, the formeris made difficult of access, and thus abstraction of the contents of said compartment is compartively impossible.

In another application made by me for Letters Patent for improvements in mail-boxes, filed November 19, 1891, and bearing Serial No. 412,419, a mail-box having two separate compartments with a common door is shown, described, and claimed, the same, though shown in this specification, being not herein claimed.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

A mail-box having separate compartments, a casing at the top and side of the upper compartments, forming with the back walls of said compartments a throat to said lower compartment, a door for said throat above said compartments, said throat entering said lower compartment at the rear portion of the top thereof, and said lower compartment extending in rear of the upper compartments, said parts being combined substantially as decribed.

JAMES SPEAR. Witnesses:

JOHN A. WIEDERSHEIM, R. H. GRAESER. 

